


In our heads, a million voices scream and shout

by LouiseLouise



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Street fighting, no one actually fights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 20:34:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21398257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouiseLouise/pseuds/LouiseLouise
Summary: Buck finds out about Eddie’s street fighting, they row about it, Eddie says it’s none of Buck’s business.So next fight, Eddie’s ready and waiting and then the guy announces his opponent…and it’s Buck!Prompted bythis poston tumblr
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz
Comments: 9
Kudos: 156





	In our heads, a million voices scream and shout

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, all mistakes are mine  
Title from "Get up and Fight" by Muse

“I’m not fighting you Buck”.

Buck is taking off his jacket, folding the blue fabric with care before handling it to a puzzled referee. He turns to face Eddie, lifting his arms to his chest, readying himself to punch and get punched, if it came to that. “Isn’t it what you folks come here to do?” he says, gesturing at the audience with a playful smile.

Eddie shakes his head. The anger inside him, the one that drove him to the junkyard fights in the first place is setting his skin on fire, but the sight of his best friend in front of him melts something in his guts. He doesn’t want to fight with him, doesn’t feel the need to punch him anymore, if he ever needed it for real. 

Buck starts walking around the makeshift ring, moving like any of those anonymous fighter would. Eddie can see the muscles tensing on his arms. Buck’s not here to play.

“You’re on blood thinners you can’t risk getting hurt, Buck”. Eddie’s not here to play either, but there’s no way he’s fighting Buck. Despite all the anger he felt against him those past weeks, he said he’s forgiven him and Eddie Diaz is a man of his word.

“You have a son, you can’t risk getting hurt, Eddie,” Buck replies mimicking Eddie’s tone, starting to move around the fighting area, light on his feet.  
“Your leg is still at risk.”  
“Your wife died.”  
“You almost drown.”  
Buck winces at that, the memories of the tsunami still bringing him nightmares every now and then. He undoes the buttons on his vest, giving his arms more room to swing left and right. “You thought you were getting back together and having another baby.”

The crowd is growing impatient waiting for a first punch, encouraging the two men to fight with chanting and yelling. Eddie needs to punch someone who’s not Buck, but the fact that Buck is the one preventing Eddie to do so kinda makes him wanna punch Buck, if that makes sense.

“You think grown men don’t cry and shouldn’t whine about their problems,” Buck says, circling closer to Eddie, throwing his fist in the general direction of his face, still far enough to be sure he can’t actually hit him.  
“Yeah because seeing a shrink solved all your problems, right Buckley?” Eddie mocks. “Oh wait no, you just slept with her and now you’re suddenly an expert on therapy.”  
“Still healthier than this though.” Buck smiles. He’s not Buck 1.0 anymore and his past self is something he’s accepted a while ago. He made mistakes, learned from them, grew up and is fully capable to find new ones to make and continue growing. That’s life.

The crowd whistles as he stops moving around to roll up his sleeves, slowly, carefully waiting for Eddie to come to his senses. 

“I can take care of myself,” Eddie shouts over the growing sound of the crowd. His hands are full of rage and he’s two seconds away from giving in and throwing them at Buck just to end this conversation. He’s an adult, with more life experiences than many people, he can handle whatever comes his way without having to pour his feelings out to a stranger in a minimalist office for a hundred bucks an hour.  
“For how long Eddie? How many nights do you still need, sneaking out of your own house to get beaten up by strangers, until you get better?”  
“I don’t need a lecture Buck, especially not from a guy wearing a three piece suit to a fist fight,” Eddie snorts, his hands pushing on Buck’s chest to keep him away.  
Buck smiles and stops moving, his arms coming to his sides. “And why do you think I wore a suit tonight, Eddie? What could possibly be on my, no, on our calendars that made me dress up fancy tonight?”  
Eddie frowns, trying to understand what Buck means, trying to remember the date and what he could’ve forgott- oh shit. His fists drops along with all the tension in his shoulders, replaced by the sad realization that tonight was Christopher’s school play, where he had a seat saved for him in the front row.  
“No,” he mumbles, “no no no no that’s not, that’s not tonight, right? I wouldn’t-” He wouldn’t miss such an important moment in his son’s life, right? They’d rehearsed Christopher’s part every night for the past month and every night Eddie was in awe of Chris’s simple happiness about being a tree in the forest of his classmates.

Buck takes a step toward him, eyes full of compassion for his best friend, knowing what was going on in his mind, knowing the downfall was gonna hit him hard.  
Eddie shakes his head in disbelief. How could he do that, how could he disappoint the most important person in his life? The guilt and the shame starts to fill every part of his body and mind, bringing him to his knees, blurring everything around him. He barely registers Buck rushing to his side, kneeling and throwing his arms around him. He doesn’t feel the tears streaming down his face, his walls finally breaking down.

Buck holds Eddie tight against his chest and it takes him a moment to realize that everything’s gone silent around them. No one booing anymore because a fighter forfeits, no calling him a quitter. No one chanting for him to get back on his feet, you coward. Instead, Buck looks around and he sees some faces, the ones closer to them, and it’s like they understand what’s at stake in front of them. 

They’re here for so many different reasons, fighting to let out the anger or the pain, looking for relief or distraction from something bigger. For the adrenaline or the fun too; all those reasons also making them the best persons to understand how nice it would feel to just cave in and let yourself fall to the ground, finally letting go of all of those reasons.

Buck helps Eddie on his feet and suddenly the silence is filled with applause and joyous whistles. It’s a weird group of people, but somehow it’s some kind of brotherhood too.

Buck leads Eddie away as the next fighters are called to the ring, the people they pass on their way out nodding them with respect before turning their attention back to the action they came here for.

-

The ride home is quiet and Buck can see in the corner of his eye that Eddie’s trying hard to keep it together, pretending like he didn’t just break down in the middle of an illegal street fighting arena. He doesn’t push him, giving him time to process all the feelings he’s probably having and hating having at the same time.

Eddie’s house is dark and quiet when Buck leads him in, flicking the lights up as they enter.  
“Is he-” Eddie starts.  
“Chris is with Maddie and Chimney,” Buck explains. “I thought it’d be best for you to have some time to rest, before you two talk.”  
Eddie nods, eyes on the floor and avoiding Buck’s look.  
“They’ve probably fed him popcorn and chocolate cake for dinner, just so you know, so he may be still high on sugar tomorrow when you get him back.”  
There’s a very small smile on Eddie’s lips and Buck takes that as a win.  
“He’s gonna hate me for that,” Eddie says, hiding his face in his arms. “Fuck Buck he’s gonna- I let him down, I’m-”  
“Hey, hey,” Buck comes closer and puts his arms on Eddie’s arms, dragging him closer until he’s hugging him and Eddie’s arms are around Buck’s shoulders. “I don’t think your son is capable of hating anyone, let alone his dad, okay?”  
“I let him down,” Eddie repeats, despair in his voice. “He doesn’t deserve his dad to let him down, Buck.”  
Buck can feel Eddie’s tears rolling own his own neck. Tears are good, he thinks, tears are better than bottling up your emotions and fighting strangers at night.  
“Yes, he does deserve better Eddie, and that’s what you’re gonna give him because that’s what you usually do, right? You’ve been an amazing father so far, he knows that, and you know that.”  
“Not tonight I wasn’t.”  
Buck sighs. “Not tonight, you’re right. Tonight you fucked up. Welcome to being human, Eddie,we make mistakes all the time. Humans fail each other all the time, remember?” Buck lifts his head up away from Eddie’s neck, his hands on Eddie’s face, making him look at him. “What makes you an amazing father is that you’re gonna do what you need to get better, for you and for Chris, just like you’ve always done. Even if this time it involves talking about your feelings.”  
“Well I feel terrible.” Eddie’s not crying anymore, but his face is nothing but exhaustion and regrets. He’s tired of fighting. Against Buck, against strangers, but most importantly as he just realizes it, against himself. He was raised to keep it to himself, to shut up and move on, but he knows Buck is right about needing to talk to someone.   
“And you deserve to feel terrible,” Buck says, earning himself a frown from Eddie. “For like five minutes you do, then you deserve to forgive yourself for messing up and do your best not to do it again, okay?”  
Eddie nods and sighs. “Okay.”  
“You also deserve to sleep, and maybe shower first because man I have to tell you, you stink, on top of looking like hell. Deal?”  
“Deal,” Eddie nods, a smile on his face, small but genuine. 

It’s still a long road to being fine, and he has a lot to make amend for, to Christopher, to Buck, to the 118. But tonight was the wake up call he needed, and as the water flows on his bruised skin, the tension in his body starts fading a bit. Within the warmth of the shower, Eddie starts breathing again, as the hope for better days now feels within reach.


End file.
